Basically, the people bitching and moaning for the most part don't appear to be customers or they don't want it known that they are being hypocritical by publicly decrying BFL yet continuing to patronize BFL.
Your tone is quite unbecoming of a businessman.
Bottom line is, we aren't losing customers, we are gaining them, so we must be doing something right. Like... providing superior equipment at reasonable prices. Just a start.
Stop
social proofing. Start proving you're worth your mettle.
You know what I wonder? Are all you whiners crying about a scam going to pony up an apology when the ASICs ship?
Actually,
Few people have directly stated that BFL ASICS are vapor, or that BFL is a scam.
That your president / director is a convicted scammer is simply a material fact.
You admitted this. Good. That's a start.
However, you (Butterfly Labs Inc.) culpably took steps to withhold this information, and withheld last names of all employees,
in
direct continuation of Sonny Vleisides documented modus operandi from previous long running scams.
(1)For this, you should be the one apologizing, in the case that BFL is otherwise legitimate.
(Which seems
possible, though perhaps not overwhelmingly likely, when seen from the outside.)
Your transparency is
hardly better than that of Pirate & Company.
Thus, clearly, your next move should be to do everything in your power to show honesty through transparency.
There are many, many, many warning signs beyond the verifiable evidence that has been posted so far.
Stuff that hasn't been brought to light yet, and should make any prospective investor uneasy.
(E.g: The references to non-existent Medical Technology on BFL's website.)
You knowingly withheld extremely pertinent information at the peril of your customers.
Did it not occur to you that this would predictably backfire?
Did it not occur to you that this is a REALLY, REALLY BAD IDEA?
I'm not a BFL customer. I don't have any vested interest one way or another.
But after lining up some of the pieces I felt
sick to my stomach. Hence this thread.
Absolutely no one should be placing pre-orders with you under the circumstances.I hope you're not furthering another of Sonny's many documented schemes to defraud (whether knowingly or not).
Have you considered that you may be (knowingly or not) furthering a scam?
Can you provide any convincing argument to the contrary?
I pause to note that this should be trivially easy if ASICs are anywhere close to being shipped..
If any of the whiny allegations are unfounded, you are hereby cordially encouraged to demonstrate it by directly confronting them.
Use this opportunity to crush the "crying whiners" under the heavy heel of the truth!
Then we can stop shouting, go about our business, and everyone will be happy for it.
BFL_Sonny's post read like fake sincerity, blame shifting and misdirection at best, and at worst coldly calculated lies.
"Oh yeah, let's make use of Joe Bitcoin's anti US Govt. bias to evoke sympathy. That'll work." Please.
(Okay, it worked, of course it worked.)
You (BFL) didn't address one, not one of the allegations outside of what's been proven beyond doubt by weight of official, public documents.
This
hardly signals interest to set things straight.
As it stands, I think you are lying, or being lied to, or some combination thereof.
Come clean.
Three quick questions, in the interest of transparency and all: - Is Sonny Cris Vleisides the founder of BFL?
- What is the contact information of his parole officer?
- What is your response to the following:
It has been
demonstrated that BFL Single is a pair of Altera EP3SL150F780 chips.
This chip is no longer manufactured, and the official price from digikey, Altera's authorized distributor, is $2,184.99
per chip.
That's almost $4,400 per board
just for the chips.
Obviously since the single sells for $600 they are not paying anything close to full price for these chips. But since they are no longer manufactured there is a finite supply, and with the huge demand they surely can see that the End Is Near for the Altera-based product line.
So now it fits together:
they aren't ruining a good thing -- the good thing is over whether they like it or not. They have run out of cheap chips. Without the insane more-than-5x cost advantage over the competition they can't compete anymore, so they pretty much have to close up shop.
But wait.
If you have to close up shop anyways, why not go out with a bang? Especially when you have an
experienced fraudster running the company? The company is toast without the cheap chips anyways, so why not run off with a pile of preorder cash? Better yet, tell the people you sold product to that they can send the boards back as part of a "trade in". Remember, there are no more cheap chips, so the supply of these boards is about to get cut off. And mining boards turn electricity into anonymous, untraceable cash, so running off with them is about as safe as running off with BTC.
You may or may not believe their ASIC announcement is a scam, but either way the claim that "oh they have so much to lose by scamming people why would they do that" doesn't hold water. Their existing product line has a fixed lifespan -- ASIC or not.Source:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1084b1/why_would_bfl_turn_a_good_thing_into_a_scam/I'll be awaiting your reply.
(1) The master mind behind this scam is James Ray Houston apx. 60 years old. He gained fame in 1974 when he ran for Governor in Nevada.
His accomplice is Sonny Vleisides apx. 30 years old. Both from Kansas City originally .... However, these guys are very slick and try very hard not put their names on anything.
). What about the new/lost orders? Your pre-order process is going to last until you successfully ship first working device, until then you are losing both existing and potential customers due to this kerfuffle. There is nothing unreasonable (taking into account the state of competition) in releasing some solid product-related data (if you have such). Granted, i/you may not know enough about the competition to make such assumption. If so – do make it clear instead of this pointless posing/picture posting. 
